Word: irma
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Ginn's production employs more conventional mystiques, making simple and obvious reversals of sexual roles: Madame Irma's "visitors" are played as vain effeminates, sexless transvestites who, when gathered together in the last act, remind one of the opening of Macbeth played in drag. Similarly, Irma is conceived as the Madam of an answering service, a nervous dike devoid of femininity and consequent feminine insight. This is supported by the text often, particularly in the dialogue with Carmen, but it annihilates any credibility to her stated relationship with Georges, the chief of police. Genet's contradictions work better...
Performances employed more acting mannerisms than acting, and even Daniel Seltzer as Georges used more vocal and physical tricks than this excellent and accomplished actor has ever displayed. Susan Lyke plays Irma at a fever pitch, unmodulated and quickly uninteresting, as was Janet Bowes as a listless Carmen. Michael McKean did the Envoy with excellent comic precision, although by playing it gay he threw the production over the edge, as far as this reviewer was concerned. Only Lisa Kelley successfully conveyed something of the balances and conflicts in Genet's many strange worlds. But as Chantal the revolutionary she comes...
...adversaries have undergone some renovations too. In the first Drummond adventure, Irma was described as a sultry brunette who spoke in silent-movie captions ("Mon Dieu, you ugly man! Tell me why you are such a fool!"). In this film, she is introduced as the svelte blonde secretary of an oil magnate who maintains his executive offices in a private jetliner. "Your cigar, sir," murmurs Irma (Elke Sommer), as she extracts a plump Corona from her ruffled cigarter. The boss lights up, draws deep, looks faintly startled as the cigar explodes a .38 slug that rips through the back...
...Three, Irma La Douce, and Kiss Me, Stupid--the man's last three pictures--were characterized not so much by cynicism as by excess. In all things. Kiss Me, Stupid, unquestionably Wilder's worst, was so overplayed, overwritten and overdirected that it seemed fair to call it his Armageddon. But with the benefit of hindsight, one can see that beneath the roughage Wilder has been brewing a new style of comedy. And the brew has come to boil with The Fortune Cookie...
...most brides, the guide during the transitional years was Irma Rombauer's Joy of Cooking, a primer that marked a distinct advance upon Fannie...